Death Takes Passage #4

by Sue Henry

  “Adult harbor seals average six feet in length, weigh as much as two hundred and fifty pounds, and may live to be thirty years old. They can dive to depths of up to six hundred feet and stay underwater as long as eight minutes before they must surface to breathe. They eat a wide variety of fish, squid, and crustaceans. They do not migrate, but may follow the movement of their prey. They can be seen anywhere from California to the Bering Sea.”

  Jensen found Captain Kay on the bridge.

  “Message from Sitka,” the captain said. “Reported that there were only the anticipated prints—passenger occupants and crew members—no one unexpected, even around the items that were stolen.”

  Turning away from the instrument panel, he picked up a fax message which he held out to Jensen. “The coast guard found Morrison’s body,” he told him. “In Peril Strait. I won’t bother explaining the technical information on the location, that doesn’t matter anyway, since it was about where you would expect. What matters is that they say she wasn’t just thrown overboard. Report says she was dead before she went into the water. There was a penetrating fracture of her skull. She was hit with something heavy and sharp. Their preliminary guess is an ax.”

  Jensen looked up sharply from the fax. “An ax?”

  “Yes.”

  “There wasn’t any blood on the deck.”

  “There wouldn’t be much, but …”

  “There was one small blot on the ribbon we found.”

  “From the angle of the wound, they think she was leaning on or over the rail.”

  “Where the hell would anyone get an ax? The tool locker? The engine room? Wait … there was a fire ax on the wall of the deck where we found her hair ribbon. No. That deck had the windows to Soapy’s, so it had to be the one above it.”

  “No, two above,” Kay told him. “The Upper Deck, one down from the checker board.”

  “Right. Bright red. Clamped to the wall. Let’s go get it. If it’s still there.”

  “Make you a bet it’s not. Probably thrown in after her. You go. I can’t leave the bridge right now. If, by some incredible luck, you find it, bring it back up here and we’ll make sure it gets locked up till we get to Petersburg.”

  Jensen was already halfway out the door.

  Almost sprinting around the owner’s stateroom, Jensen collided with Jessie coming up the amidships stairway.

  “Whoa,” she cautioned, throwing out a hand to clutch at the rail. “Where’re you going so fast?”

  “I’ll show you. Come on.”

  Unbelievably, the ax was there, rucked securely into the clamp that held it to the wall under the stair. It was bright red, with Spirit of ‘98 in black block letters on the long handle, the sharp edge of the heavy blade resting in a protective metal sleeve also fastened to the wall, a typical fire ax, with a spike on the head opposite the blade.

  Amazed, Jensen simply stared at it.

  “What is it, Alex?” Jessie asked, as they stood in front of it, backs to the wide wake that churned white foam out behind the ship. “What’s going on?”

  Still looking at the ax, he told her in short, terse sentences how Julie Morrison had died.

  “My God, Alex,” she said, when he finished. “I hope she didn’t see it coming. This isn’t going to go over well with Don Sawyer.”

  “She couldn’t have. The blow came from behind, above and a little to the right, which indicates a right-handed person, taller than she was. She was leaning on the rail. It was probably the ax that pulled off her hair ribbon as she fell overboard and left that single patch of blood. It also means that someone knew she was there. Whoever it was planned it, took this off the wall two decks up and was waiting for her, or crept down the stairs behind her after Sawyer left. Any sound would have been covered completely by the rush of the water.

  “Afterward, they wiped this and put it back, thinking, maybe, that its absence might be noticed before hers—by a crew member doing a security check. They check the fire equipment—part of the routine.”

  Carefully, using a handkerchief from his pocket so as not to leave his own fingerprints, Jensen lifted the ax from its clamp and metal sleeve. Carrying it nearer the rail, where there was better light, he examined it closely. There was no evidence on the sharp blade that it had been used for the purpose he suspected—it had been wiped clean—but between the head and the handle it was very slightly discolored, a brownish tinge, hard to see against the red paint. One short strand of hair was caught there, too.

  “The lab will have to test it, but I think there’s enough there for type and DNA,” he told Jessie. “There may be fingerprints on the handle, though it looks like it has been wiped down—the blade, for sure.”

  Nevertheless, he knew it was the weapon that had caused the death of Julie Morrison. Why and who, he had no idea.

  Together, they took the ax back around to the elevator, rather than up the stairs, to avoid taking it through the crowd of passengers on the Bridge Deck above them. There was no need to upset them—yet.

  16

  12:30 P.M.

  Tuesday, July 15, 1997

  Spirit of ‘98

  Tracy Arm, Inside Passage, Alaska

  WAS SERVED AS THE SPIRIT RETURNED DOWN TRACY ARM and into Endicott Arm, headed to the second glacier. Don Sawyer had refused to come to the dining room, saying he wasn’t hungry. Jensen could understand why, considering the events of the morning and the loss of Julie Morrison. It was all the man could do to keep on track with everything that was happening. Alex and Jessie ate with the Berrys, the Hemlins, a couple they had not met before, Laurie Trevino, and Jeff Brady, the committee member from Skagway, who had been one of the miners in the mystery play the previous night.

  Everyone at the table asked questions about the body of the woman retrieved from the waters of Tracy Arm, but they changed the subject when Alex explained to them that no one knew who she was, what had caused her death, or how she had come to be there. “I think Captain Kay will make an announcement about it in a little while,” he told them. “We’ll be making an unplanned stop in Petersburg later this evening to turn the body over to the authorities.”

  Jessie helped steer the conversation away from the corpse by turning to Trevino. “You all did a wonderful job in the play last night, Laurie.”

  “Thanks. It’s a lot of fun for us, too.”

  “Was that a real Canadian mounted policeman?” Nella Berry asked.

  “We’re not supposed to ask Laurie questions, are we? She’s not in costume.” Jessie smiled. “Not even hints, Laurie?”

  “Don’t worry. There’ll be another scene at dinner tonight that’ll give you a couple more clues, and we’ll be in the lounge for questions later.”

  The actress turned to Jensen. “Are you ready to play Arizona Charlie Meadows, Alex? It’s just a few lines that you could read if you needed to. It’s an introduction for my part, hardly anything else. You’re so perfect for the part. It’s going to be great.”

  Astonished and embarrassed, Alex remembered that he had promised to play Meadows. The thefts and murders had driven it completely from his mind, and now he was too busy trying to solve them. Recalling his half-asleep fantasy of Sunday night, he couldn’t help smiling ruefully. Be careful what you agree to, Jensen, he thought.

  “I just don’t see how I can,” he told her. “There’s so much going on right now that I hadn’t planned for.”

  “Oh, do it,” Jessie urged. “It would only take a few minutes if you can read it and don’t have to memorize lines. You’d be so perfect.”

  “You are,” Brady seconded her enthusiasm. “I promise to make it easy for you, and we really need you. There’s nothing to it.”

  Alex chuckled. “And just how much do they pay you to recruit inexperienced amateur actors?” he asked. “You don’t know what you’re asking—or what you’re liable to get, but … okay. Just don’t expect Shakespeare. And I’ll take you at your word, to make it easy.”

  “Hey, no problem. Come to ou
r cabin after lunch and I’ll give you your lines and the costume. We eat early—five o’clock to five-thirty—with the crew, if you don’t mind, and do a quick run-through just before dinner. And, best of all, we won’t even have to glue on Charlie’s famous signature mustache—yours would put his to shame anyway.”

  “Good for you,” Jessie whispered to him, as the waitress set a bowl of mushroom soup, with an inviting aroma, before each of them. “Be good for you to do a little bit of something besides this investigation for a while.”

  He had to agree that a digression wouldn’t hurt. With all that had happened, plus his lack of sleep the night before, he was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed. Things just didn’t seem to stop happening long enough to think them over. The idea of eating with the crew was an unexpected bonus. Someone might have an idea about the thefts or murder that would be helpful. It couldn’t hurt.

  Resolutely, he tried to put the whole thing out of his mind. For a few minutes, he focused on a conversation between Bill Berry and Jeff Brady, about the work of the centennial committees in setting up the whole reenactment. But soon his thoughts had slipped back to the problems on which he was working, and he couldn’t seem to help turning over in his mind all the disparate elements in the confusion of the last day and a half. Twice, he had to ask his lunch companions to repeat their questions.

  Before lunch, he had spent the better part of an hour with Captain Kay, in his office, trying to make some sense of the events, and sending out communications to several agencies. He had spoken to the Scientific Detection Laboratory in Anchorage, which took care of crime analysis for the whole state of Alaska. Answers he needed from postmortem investigations on both dead women would not come quickly, nor would fingerprint information or test results. The ax with its tissue samples could not even leave the boat until they reached Petersburg later that evening.

  He had called ahead to that community, to let them know what to expect in terms of the body retrieved from Tracy Arm, and to request that a fingerprint kit be put together to take with him on the ship.

  “I want to dust that ax myself, before it leaves the ship. Takes too long for the prints to go back and forth. I want a set here in case we need it. I’ll make photocopy enlargements of any I find and send the originals with the weapon. They can check them through AFIS.”

  The captain had raised a questioning eyebrow at the acronym.

  “Automated Fingerprint Identification System. The lab has a whole roomful of computers that talk to—well, the national system.

  “Who hired those guards?” Jensen had asked, switching gears to focus on his earlier encounter with the surly man in the lower corridor. “There’s something about the one that claims he fell on the stairs. He’s got a real attitude, and it seems odd to me that they would send someone like him on a job this important. Someone pounded him pretty good, from the condition of his face.”

  “They were hired by the centennial committee, but double-checked by the company.”

  “Do you have paperwork—contracts on them?”

  “No, but I can get them faxed from Seattle. Important?”

  “Maybe. Don’t know. At this point everything’s important—or not important. Until I know more I won’t know what is and isn’t. Go ahead and get them for me, will you?”

  “Sure.”

  Jensen was yanked back into the present during dessert, a chocolate mousse with raspberry sauce, which he realized he had half-eaten without any idea of what he was putting in his mouth. As he stared at it, Kay rose to address the passengers, and he stood looking silently around the room for a moment. He was an imposing, noticeable man, every inch a captain in his white uniform. The room grew still. His deep voice easily reached everyone in the quiet room.

  “I am sorry to have to speak to you concerning the unpleasant occurrence this morning. Some of you are already aware that we were obliged to retrieve the body of an unknown woman from the waters of Tracy Arm during the time we stopped at the waterfall. We have no idea who she was, or how her body came to be at that location. I assure you that this has nothing to do with the crew member who was reported missing from the ship early this morning. Julie Morrison’s body has been found in Peril Strait, where we believe she fell from the vessel in a manner we have not yet discovered.”

  This, he and Jensen had agreed, was the best way of informing those aboard who had nothing to do with Morrison’s disappearance, without alarming whoever was responsible.

  “I want to reassure you that you needn’t be concerned in either case, both of which have been tragic and the last kind of thing we would hope to have occur on this trip. Both incidents are being taken care of through the authorities, and we will be making an unscheduled docking in Petersburg later tonight. However, no one will leave the ship at this short stop. We will turn the unidentified body over to the police and continue on through the Wrangell Narrows toward Ketchikan, where we will arrive at approximately nine o’clock tomorrow morning, for a stopover of five hours.

  “I have one request. If anyone knows anything at all about the disappearance of Julie Morrison, our crew member, we would appreciate your reporting it. Otherwise, please continue to enjoy your trip and the wonderful scenery that Alaska and the Inside Passage provide. If we can do anything to make your stay with us more pleasurable, please let us know. The bridge will be open for visitors this afternoon, if you would care to see how the Spirit operates. During the next hour or so, we will pause briefly at Dawes Glacier and return down Endicott Arm before turning south across Frederick Sound toward Petersburg. Be sure to keep an eye out for whales, as there are often dozens of them to be seen in the open waters of the sound.”

  As soon as Kay had finished his speech, passengers began to leave the dining room. Jessie stood up, declaring her intention to spend some time with her camera.

  “I’d like to get some pictures of the seals, if there are any on the floating ice at the next glacier. You want to come?”

  “No,” Alex told her. “I’m going with Laurie, to get the costume for whatever I’ve committed myself to. I wish now I hadn’t agreed, but how could I have known I wouldn’t have the time? Then, I think I’ll go hide out in the engine room. Ray offered to give me a tour, and I’d like to see the power that runs the ship. You’re invited, if you want.”

  “Nope. I’ve ignored my camera long enough. There’s a lot of good opportunities for shots out there.”

  They separated, Jensen going with Laurie to a cabin on the same deck as the dining room, along the corridor where the gold was secured. He tried on a fringed leather jacket very similar to the one he had imagined. “We must have seen the same picture in the gold rush books,” he told her, as she handed him a broad-brimmed white western hat so big it rested on his ears.

  “Oh dear. Well, you can stuff the inside band with some folded paper until it fits,” she decided. “The jacket looks great, though, doesn’t it? Have you got a pair of pants that will go with it? I wish we had some boots. Here’s the six-shooter and gun belt.” It was a huge pearl-handled gun, but not any more real than her small pistol. “Don’t worry. It’s for looks. You won’t have to pretend to shoot anybody.”

  “Hey, with this, I might like to practice drawing and fancy twirling for the impression it would make.”

  “Good idea,” Laurie laughed. “Do it while I sing and I’ll use it, improvise. You’re a bom actor,” she told him. “Already getting into character. Arizona was a real showman for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Have I created a thespian that will give up law enforcement for a life in the theater?”

  “I doubt it, but this could be fun,” he grinned and tipped the hat, which, without padding, pressed his ears out like handles on a jug. “I do have a pair of western boots. No proper Idaho cowboy would travel without them.”

  “Oh, you’re one of those! Great. Wear them.”

  Something occurred to Jensen, as he remembered the performance of the night before. “Listen, Laurie. Last night, in the play, you
mentioned that it was a gold necklace that was supposedly stolen by one of the miners. Right?”

  “Yeah. We’re trying to put as much authentic gold rush material into this as we can. A lot of the dance hall girls had them. They could be worn as necklaces, or belts, and had …”

  “A lot of charms and gold nuggets attached to them,” he interrupted. “Do you actually have one that will be used later in the drama?”

  “Is this a real Alaska State Trooper question?” she wanted to know, “It sounds as though it’s something more than just wanting to know about the performance.”

  “Well, yes. Could I see it, please?”

  “Sure. We made one up of an assortment of costume jewelry. Made nuggets like beads, out of that bakeable clay, and painted them gold.”

  As she spoke, Laurie opened a case that Alex could see contained an assortment of jewelry, stage makeup, and other odds and ends necessary to her acting job. Reaching into it, she pulled out a long chain and held it out to him. “Here.”

  Without taking it, Jensen frowned, still staring into her case.

  “Is that other chain part of it?”

  “What other chain?” She looked back, puzzled, at the sight of another gold chain that had been under the one she lifted out, and she reached to pick it up.

  He caught her arm to stop her. “No. Don’t touch it.”

  From a handy box of Kleenex, he pulled one tissue and carefully raised the second chain from the case. It wasn’t really similar to the first, clearly well crafted, with a thinner chain, and hung with what appeared to be real gold nuggets and charms: a tiny gold pan with a pick and shovel, perfume bottle, a windlass, a champagne bottle, and others. A gold pin or brooch hung from one end, meant to fasten it together at whatever length the wearer desired, leaving the rest to dangle. But it was a lady’s watch that caught his attention, and, when he turned it toward the light from the window, he found that it had a name engraved on it—Violet.

  “Where the hell did that come from?” Laurie exclaimed in bewilderment.